We'll Manage
by mum-to-you
Summary: Molly and Arthur had argued about the flying car all morning. Afterwards, they just went about their day, but Arthur knew it wasn't over yet. Not by half.


Arthur Weasley was so tired he ached. He had been up until all hours the night before conducting raids and had just spent a tense day at home trying to stay out of his wife's way. Now, he was pulling himself heavily up the stairs towards the confrontation he had been avoiding all day. Molly had expressed her views about the car quite plainly at breakfast, but he knew it wasn't over yet. Not by half.  
  
"Maybe she'll be asleep by now," he thought without much confidence, but that only made him feel worse. Say what else you will about him, Arthur Weasley loved his wife, madly and passionately. Nine times out of ten, when he was the last one to come upstairs at night, there was nothing he wanted more than to find her absolutely awake and waiting for him, preferably in some stage of undress. Tonight, however, was that tenth time.  
  
He sighed wearily and turned the doorknob with trepidation. Molly was sitting up cross-legged in the middle of the bed, scribbling on a piece of parchment in her lap. She didn't look up and she didn't speak.

Arthur grimaced and shrugged out his robes. It was a very warm summer night, so he just stepped into his pyjama trousers, not bothering with the shirt. He crawled into bed next to her, put his arm around her shoulders, and said, "Molly, I'm sorry. I probably should've told you about the car."

"Well, we agree on something, then," she answered tartly.

Arthur closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he realized that she wasn't going to make this easy. Something about this was really bothering her, and he had to find out what it was, or there wouldn't be any peace between them for days. He gave her shoulders a quick rub, and then lay down, stretching his long legs down towards the foot of the bed and putting his hands behind his head, ready for what he expected would be a long, hard conversation.

Molly shot him an angry look. "So what exactly is the minimum fine these days for a contraption like that?" she snapped, "About fifty galleons, isn't it?" Arthur swallowed hard and nodded.  
  
"And where do you suppose we would get that kind of money, Arthur?" Molly asked in a dry rasp.  
  
"Molly, don't blow things out of—" Arthur stopped abruptly. That was a sentence he knew he had no business finishing. He tried again. "Molly, love, no one saw the boys. It'll be all right."  
  
"No one that we know of. Yet. I suppose we won't really know that for sure until tomorrow, will we? What then?"  
  
"Molly, we'll manage," he assured her.  
  
She threw him a look of scorn over her shoulder and blurted out, "'We'll manage, we'll manage.' You always say that, but you never really come up with anything more concrete to solve the problem, do you?" In horror, Molly clamped her hand over her mouth and wished the words back. She looked over at Arthur's shocked and stricken face, then quickly set her parchment aside and turned to face him with a contrite look. She curled up next to him and kissed his cheek. "That sounded much harsher than I intended it to, Arthur. I'm not blaming all _that_ on you. It's just . . . the facts. We can't afford it. And yes, I do wish you had told me about the car."  
  
"Molly, really," he put in, "We've always had an unspoken agreement, that where my 'Muggle rubbish,' as you call it, is concerned, you'd simply rather not hear about it. If the boys hadn't taken it, you'd never have needed to know about the car at all."  
  
"But they did take it, and I did find out, didn't I? And in a very unpleasant manner, I might add. You should have told me."  
  
Arthur looked at her skeptically. "So you're telling me that if I'd told you about the bloody car's being able to fly, you wouldn't be angry with me?"  
  
"Yes, I would be angry," she sighed, "but I would only be angry with you for doing something colossally stupid, not for being dishonest with me."  
  
Arthur grew very quiet and couldn't quite look her in the eye. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. "I never intended for the car to be flown, Molly. I really didn't. I just wanted to see if I could do it. Surprised the hell out of me that they actually pulled it off, if you must know the truth. I swear I didn't think there was anything much to tell you. But you're right, as usual. Something that big, I should have mentioned, especially since I was aware the twins knew about the car."  
  
Molly sighed and slipped her arms around him. She put her head down on his shoulder and fretted, "I'm really trying not to borrow trouble, Arthur, but I'm very worried about that fine."  
  
Arthur kicked his foot against the parchment, jostling it. "The budget? It can't be as bad as all that can it?" he asked lightly. But when he looked at Molly's taut face, it sank in. He had got to the heart of what was really upsetting her.  
  
She nodded solemnly. "For the past three years in a row, four of the children have been enrolled at Hogwarts, and we've only just barely managed to scrape by. You know as well as I do how hard it's been." He nodded his head and ran his hand through her hair, but he couldn't really think of anything comforting to say.  
  
"Arthur?" she whispered into the silence.  
  
"What, love?"  
  
"For the next two years, we'll have _five_ in school at the same time, you know." Her voice cracked, and she stifled a quiet sob. She looked up at him with tears forming on her eyelashes and shook her head. "I just don't think it's possible. I really don't see how we're going to make it."  
  
Before he thought about it, Arthur automatically replied, "We'll manage." He winced as the words came out because he knew there was little comfort in them. He knew very well that if anyone figured out how to manage it all, it would more likely be Molly, not he.  
  
"I've got stores of all the basic potions ingredients on hand that I can divide amongst them, so that's all right," she thought aloud. "And Gideon's wand seems to suit Ginny as if it were made for her. That alone will save a lot. Most everything else we'll have to get secondhand, I guess."  
  
"You always astound me, dear, with the ways you think to make do. You know I've never had a good head for maths," he said as he kissed her on the top of her head, "or budgets." Molly just shrugged her shoulders, but she ran her hand affectionately over his chest, so he knew she'd heard the compliment he'd intended.  
  
"Percy's got so tall that he'll need new robes again this year. Well, not new, of course—" Molly worried her bottom lip with her teeth.  
  
Arthur frowned. "Percy is old enough by now to understand that we need to get things secondhand, I think. Besides, he had new robes just last year."  
  
Molly chuckled and kissed his shoulder. "Well, they certainly don't fit this year, Arthur! You remember what you were like at fifteen, growing like a weed! Every morning, I came down to the common room, and you towered over me by another inch or two."  
  
Then she looked at him seriously. "Besides, understanding isn't the same as coping. Percy feels things more keenly than the others. Things matter to him more. Ron's becoming the same way, I think, now he's older."  
  
Arthur snorted impatiently at that, but Molly continued before he could voice an opinion about Percy's attitude. "Anyway, Bill sent back some of his old robes that are too warm for Egypt, and he's so very careful with his clothes. Percy won't mind that too terribly. And Ron can have Percy's from last year. They still look good as new."  
  
"It sounds to me as if you have everything taped, love," Arthur commented, impressed.  
  
Molly looked apprehensive and replied, "Well, we'll just have to hope that there aren't too many new books on the lists. Textbooks are so terribly expensive these days."  
  
Arthur remained silent for several minutes. She always planned so carefully and was so frugal, and he never meant to make things difficult. It just seemed as if he often managed to do just that. He lay there, holding her, thinking hard of a way to make things right. Finally, he kissed her on the temple and said, "Tell you what, Molly. As soon as we get the children back to school, I'll remove the charms on the car. That way, we won't have to worry about the twins getting into any more mischief over the Christmas hols. A bit like closing the barn door after the horse has got out, but I'll do that for you."  
  
Molly looked up at him with her brow furrowed. "I'd appreciate it, Arthur, but what about the next few days?"  
  
He chuckled and asked, amused, "Do you really think they'd risk your fury again so soon? Besides, I can't do it until next week because we'll need it to get this lot to London. There are so many charms on that bloody car that I'll have to take it completely apart and put it back together again. An uncharmed Muggle car is still right useful now that I know how to drive one."  
  
Molly just shook her head with resigned amusement. He looked down into her eyes and said earnestly, "I'll take care of it, Molly. I promise you. You can still trust me, I hope."  
  
She met his gaze and answered, "If you say you'll do something, I know I can stake my life on it, Arthur." Then she gave him a wry smile. "It's just the things you don't tell me I have to watch out for."  
  
He couldn't help but laugh at that, and he was relieved to hear her laugh with him. Molly rolled her eyes at him and asked, "Do you still have that writetyper you bought a long time ago?"  
  
Arthur smirked and nodded. "_Typewriter._ It's in my office. Everyone on my floor uses it for dictation. It'll go at about 116 words per minute now."  
  
Molly giggled. "Do you mean to tell me that the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office is equipped with a charmed Muggle typewriter, and bloody everyone in the Department knows about it?" Once they both started laughing, it seemed they couldn't stop. Before long they were clinging to one another breathlessly and wiping away tears of mirth. Then Molly raised herself up on one arm and looked at Arthur intently before asking, "Merlin, Arthur, when did I turn into such a harridan that you stopped telling me things like that?"  
  
He cupped her face with his hand and smiled at her. "Being a mum has taken a lot of the mischief out of you, hasn't it?"  
  
She arched an eyebrow at him, and her eyes began to twinkle. "Not all of it, love," she cautioned him, and then she leaned over and kissed him right on the base of his throat, a gesture guaranteed to drive him mad. His arms tightened around her, and he shuddered. It was a gesture she reserved as a prelude to lovemaking, and Arthur knew for certain then that things were alright between them again.  
  
All of a sudden, he didn't feel as tired and sore as he'd thought. As he shifted in the bed to face her, the parchment that had so frustrated her earlier fluttered to the floor, forgotten. They made love quickly and fiercely, with all the passion of their argument turned towards each other, rather than against. Afterwards, as Molly fell asleep in the crook of his arm, Arthur leaned over and whispered confidently in her ear, "Don't worry, Molly. I promise you we'll manage."


End file.
